Bangladesh factory collapse

The collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh killed 1,129 people, ranking among the world’s worst industrial accidents and spurred retailers and clothing brands to improve safety standards at suppliers.

A group of retailers and clothing brands failed on Thursday to establish compensation funds for the victims of two Bangladesh factory disasters, as many companies that sourced clothes from the buildings decided not to take part in the process.

A group of mainly European retailers has finalised a plan to conduct coordinated inspections of factories in Bangladesh in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the Rana Plaza disaster that killed 1,129 people in April.

Bangladeshi garment factories are routinely built without consulting engineers. Many are located in commercial or residential buildings not designed to withstand the stress of heavy manufacturing. Some add illegal extra floors atop support columns too weak to hold them, according to a survey of scores of factories by an engineering university that was shown to The Associated Press.

Fast Retailing, the Japanese operator of the Uniqlo and Theory fashion brands, for now will not sign a legally binding safety pact for factories in Bangladesh, preferring to ramp up its own inspections, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Labour umbrella groups Industrial Global Union and UNI Global Union yesterday praised top retailers for joining their drive to make Bangladesh's garment factories safer, after 1,127 people died in a factory collapse last month.

Wal-Mart Stores, the American chain that is the world's largest retailer, said it would not accept "at this time" an agreement to improve fire and building safety in Bangladesh that is supported by labour monitoring groups and signed by several other retailers this week.

Hundreds of factories which form the hub of Bangladesh's garment industry are to close indefinitely after worker unrest sparked by the death of more than 1,100 colleagues, employees announced yesterday.

Bangladesh’s army announced on Monday that it was wrapping up its search for bodies following last month’s collapse of a garment factory complex, saying that it now believed a total of 1,127 people were killed.

On April 24, Reshma Begum was working in a factory on the second floor of Rana Plaza when the building began collapsing around her. She raced down a stairwell into the basement, where she became trapped near a Muslim prayer room in a wide space that allowed her to survive.

The death toll from last month’s collapse of a garment factory complex in Bangladesh rose past 1,000 on Friday as piles of bodies were found in the ruins of a stairwell where victims had sought shelter.

The death toll from Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster passed 800 on Wednesday as rescuers pulled dozens more bodies from the rubble of a nine-storey building that collapsed outside Dhaka last month.

Masood Reza, a leading Bangladesh architect and a professor at a state-run university, said he felt “pain and anguish” when he saw footage of the garment workers trapped under the pancaked floors, crying desperately for help.

The death toll from Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster rose to 540 on Saturday after 15 bodies were overnight pulled from the wreckage of an eight-storey building housing garment factories, the army said.